


What's my name?

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Series: On Magic in Auradon [9]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, here is how you survive it all:, the way you will scream all your life, you are born and you scream, you are born crammed into a body that isn't yours, you are born with lungs and legs and itching skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 10:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20208583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: Here is how you survive in between dying things and things that are still suffocating: Your skin is dry and red and screaming, your hair drawn into tight braids. Your legs are weak and foreign, even now that you’ve walked and danced and fought on them all your life, your hair smells of rotten shrimp, even now, even still.or:You are born screaming, with your mother's voice and your mother's magic and you are raised to spit all that you are at the world's feet. Fuck you.





	What's my name?

You are born dry and screaming, the smell of rotting fish in your nose, the feeling of dried out tentacles on your new skin, and your itching legs. You are born and you scream until the world trembles around you, you are born on land and with all your magic tied to your ribs, you’re born with your mother’s voice in your lungs, with your mother’s magic brimming under your skin, you’re born and you cry.

Here is how you survive in between dying things and things that are still suffocating: Your skin is dry and red and screaming, your hair drawn into tight braids. Your legs are weak and foreign, even now that you’ve walked and danced and fought on them all your life, your hair smells of rotten shrimp, even now, even still. You breathe air and your lungs stutter, your neck aches and your magic is a screaming pit of pitch black ice right under your lungs that shouldn’t be there, your lungs that aren’t yours, your lungs that keep your gills trapped and stuck together like the day you were born.

So you take your hair and your hands and your voice, the way it has moulded itself into _yours_, yours alone, you take your two tight legs and a sword, and you snap your teeth back at Harry Hook when he stands before you, swaying back and forth, his eyes glinting with all that the isle raises all of you to keep locked behind sharp teeth. He laughs.

He laughs and it is as if you are the sun, to him, to the crew, the way you dance on the tables, stomp your feet and bare your teeth, show the world your hair and your voice and your name. They orbit around you, with their eyes on you, with your hands in Harry’s hair, and Gil’s hands on your wrists, on your arms. _What’s my name?_, you ask them, and they drop to their knees and answer you.

Mal has her head held high, a spray can in her hands, and all the isle shuffles away from her, from Maleficent’s daughter and all the rage in her glowing eyes, from the Evil Queen’s daughter and her lashes, from Jafar’s son and his quick fingers, from Cruella de Vil’s son and all that he can do with some scraps and a wire. All the isle runs from legacy and promises and your mother throws a tablet at you and snaps her tentacles at your feet. Once, when Mal slammed you against a wall with sharp hands and a sharper tongue, when Jay pulled her away, his magic bubbling so close under his skin that you could almost see it, if you tilted your head right, you came home with a string of bruises around your arms. Once, your mother looked at them and didn’t blink. Once, the entire isle knew that _legacy_ didn’t protect you.

_What’s my name?, _you ask the crew, with their sabres sharp and clear, with all their eyes and all their mouths and all the hunger in the pits of their stomachs. You tread your hands through Harry’s hair, and he melts into it, the way he does each morning, still buried in your sheets, Gil’s arm around his waist, your lips on his back. _What’s my name?_

_You are magic, my dear,_ your mother says, on one of the good days, when she has her tentacles slung around you, when Flotsam and Jetsam curl around you as if you were something valuable, something breakable, the way they once knitted themselves around a little mermaid princess. _You are magic and they took it from you before you were even born. They took it from you and crammed you into this body that isn’t yours._

Harry braids your hair once a week, his hook on the bed, Gil’s arms slung around him, and you sing softly, under your breath and lean into his touch. The sun hangs lazy atop the horizon, and it is the only time its rays reach the isle and tint it red and purple and golden, and you close your eyes as you let yourself curl into Harry’s touch, Gil’s voice as it mingles with your own. Your legs itch, still, and you can feel your magic pulling at you and towards your boys, in all this dryness and all the rotting stench.

_What’s my name?,_ you ask them, and Harry kisses your neck, Gil kisses your knuckles.

_Uma._


End file.
